of wear wouldn’t show. The man turned to answer her, and suddenly I knew why he had looked familiar, and why the princess had run away.
Lila stood and walked a bit unsteadily toward the door that led to the outhouses, clearly unused to whatever she’d been drinking. The man watched her the whole way.
I guess I wasn’t as smooth as I thought, because the bartender suddenly appeared and cleared his throat. “Wouldn’t stare at Ryan’s girl if I was you,” he said.
“If he don’t want people to look, he shouldn’t bring her to town,” I said gruffly. I made myself take a sip of my drink for effect, and immediately wished I hadn’t. It burned all the way down.
“I’ll make sure they put that on your headstone,” the bartender said, and walked away.
I gave the princess time to get settled on her throne, then threw down the rest of the drink and got to my feet. I hoped no one saw how red my face turned from the rum; I couldn’t drink like a young man anymore.
I went out the same door, and in the moonlight saw four outhouses in a row at the end of a narrow stone walkway. Three of them were unoccupied; I threw open the door to the fourth.
Lila looked up sharply from her seat, and her eyes widened in surprise when she realized I was a man. One eye didn’t widen as much as the other, due to the puffy, fading bruise around it. I said, “So this is the real story behind the ‘Princess and the Pea.’ ”
“Who the hell are you?” she cried. She tried to pull down her skirt without standing. Then, more in control, she said, “There’s three empty ones, you know.”
“No, I’m in the right spot, Lila.”
She froze, and glared at me. “I’m not going back,” she said through her teeth.
“Yeah, I figured you’d say that.” I wearily scratched my beard. “So who gave you the shiner?”
“Who do you think?” she muttered. “Would you mind turning around so I can get decent?”
“I didn’t get to be this old turning my back on people. You just go ahead, I promise I won’t enjoy it.” And I didn’t. Battered children don’t do a thing for me.
While she adjusted her pantaloons and skirts I said, “So I guess we have a dilemma.”
“I’m not going back,” she repeated. The bruise around her eye looked about three weeks old, right around the time she disappeared. “You can kill me, but you can’t take me back to that place.”
I hadn’t quite made up my mind how to proceed, but there was no need for her to know that. “I’ve already taken some of their money.”
She reached for a pouch at her waist. “I can pay you twice what they did-”
“Doesn’t work that way.” I took her chin gently and turned her face toward the light. “So who gave you the eye, really?”
“My father,” she spat, and twisted out of my grasp.
“Which one?”
Before she could answer, my luck ran out. The tavern door behind me burst open, and the man who’d sat next to Lila strode out, followed by three other big, slightly drunk guys. I reached over my shoulder and grabbed the handle of my sword; I twisted the hilt, and the knife sprang into my hand. In the same moment I jerked Lila in front of me and put the point of the dagger to her throat. I backed into the outhouse.
“I’m sure you guys know the drill,” I said to the man in front. “There’s no way you can get me before I cut her throat, so don’t even try. Swords and knives on the ground.”
The four men complied at once; as professionals, they knew I was right. To Lila, who was very still in my arms, I said, “You didn’t answer my question. Which one popped you in the eye?”
“That asshole who thought I was his daughter,” she hissed.
“ Not me,” the man in front, who the bartender called Ryan, added helpfully. He smiled coldly beneath the distinctive nose that was identical to Lila’s. She looked nothing at all like King Felix.
“That why you ran away?” I asked the girl, although my eyes stayed on the men.
“No, it was because I didn’t get a pony for my birthday,” she snapped. “Yes, it’s why I left. The bastard never let me forget I wasn’t his real child, and after he hit me I agreed with him.”
“And you took her in?” I said to Lila’s true father.
Ryan shrugged. “She’s my daughter. Her mother wasn’t always the queen.”
I nodded, sighed and released Lila. Another job well done; I couldn’t return her to her abusive royal household, and she certainly seemed in no danger here. She leaped into Ryan’s arms. I slipped the knife back into the sword hilt, twisted it so it locked and then crossed my arms. “So that’s that.”
“Not quite,” Ryan said. “You know where she is.”
“Yeah,” I agreed. “But I don’t care.”
“That’s not much of a guarantee. Lila, go tell everybody to come out here.” He gently guided her to one side; the men behind him took her and passed her out of the way back toward the tavern. The last I saw of her was a triumphant, murderous gleam in her eye as she went inside.
Now the outhouse seemed a lot smaller. None of us had weapons in our hands, but I was seriously outnumbered. “You realize this isn’t necessary,” I said. “I really don’t care.”
“Bet he got a fat fee for this,” one of the other men said.
“Bet he’s got it on him,” another agreed.
Oboy. I started calculating the distance between us, deciding whom to go for first, what parts of their bodies to aim at and what my last words were going to be.
“Whoa!” a new voice said. “It’s a whole pissin’ convention!”
A young guy with short, neat hair and clothes far too stylish for Pema stood in the tavern door. “Damn, fellas, I don’t know if I can wait through this line. I gotta whiz like a racehorse.”
“Use one of the others,” Ryan said. “Or a damn tree. This is a private conversation.”
The young guy frowned and took in the five of us. “That a fact?”
“It’s a fact,” Ryan said.
“Okay, okay, I get the hint.” He turned his back to us and undid his pants, apparently intending to piss right there in the yard. When nothing happened immediately, the young man looked up sheepishly. “I think my trouser snake’s got a little stage fright. You guys mind not lookin’ at me?”
“Oh, for God’s sake,” Ryan said in exasperation, and for a moment all their attention was off me. I took the chance.
I kicked Ryan in the balls as hard as I could, the effect helped by the little metal toe cap inside my soft- looking boot. As he fell I grabbed the two men directly behind him by the hair and slammed their heads together. The thonk was satisfyingly loud, and they dropped like bags of wet sand.
Piss-boy, who’d been faking drunk, grabbed the last man and dispatched him with three quick blows in a style I instantly recognized. When he looked up from the crumpled form, I had my sword out and at the hollow of his throat. “Hey, buddy, I was just tryin’ to help,” he said nervously.
“Fasten your pants and tell me who the hell you are.” This was the well-dressed man I’d seen in Neceda, and the mugging victim I’d passed earlier, waylaid as he shadowed me.
He didn’t flinch, and his eyes held mine. “We’ve got about a minute before the princess brings the cavalry,” he said without the country accent. “Just accept that I’m on your side. We can discuss why that is, later.”
He had a point, so I sheathed the sword and followed him around the building to the row of tied horses. “You’ll need a horse, too,” he said as he leaped onto his animal.
I untied the one nearest the end. It was a big mare, and she regarded me with the same disdain I got from all females. I put my foot in the stirrup, then stopped. “My saddlebags are still in there.”
“Get some new ones,” he said as he expertly turned his horse toward the road.
“I need what’s in them. I don’t want to end up dangling from a gallows tree.”
The young man scowled. “Mount up and wait here.” He slid from his saddle and went in through the front door. When he ran back out a moment later, six of Ryan’s men were right behind him. He gave a sharp whistle, tossed my bags at me and yelled, “ Go! ”
I kicked the horse hard, and she lurched forward into a ragged trot. In a moment the young man was beside me on his own mount.
“Mike Anders,” he said, and actually offered me his hand.
“Eddie LaCrosse,” I said. “But I figure you know that.”
He glanced behind us. The rest of Ryan’s gang had mounted up and wheeled into the street as a unit. They
